An Interview With The Amazons @ BBK Live Festival 2017

There are worse places to be on a Friday afternoon than in the sun in Bilbao surrounded by stages and bars preparing for an evening of live music. Oh, and there is worse company to have than two members of new band on the block The Amazons.

Frontman Matt Thomson and bassist Elliot Briggs were as laid back as it gets considering their show that evening was to be their first ever in Spain, opening up ahead of a headline slot from little-known Las Vegas band ‘The Killers’..

‘We’ve got absolutely no idea what to expect’ laughed Thomson. ‘But that’s one of the great things about festival season, being able to come out to cool places like this and play to loads of people, and let’s hope they like it’.

Following the release earlier in the year of their eponymous debut album, which reached a high of #18 in the British iTunes charts, it cannot be denied that their schedule has been, and continues to be, unrelenting. Arriving in Bilbao after sets at Glastonbury, then in France and the Czech Republic, and with dates at Godiva and TRANSMT festivals already completed between their set in Bilbao and now, they haven’t stopped! Yet this didn’t seem to be a problem for the lads when I asked them about their recent sets. ‘Glastonbury was a blur’ was Matt’s response with regards to their experience there. ‘Straight afterwards we were straight off for a Live Lounge session for Radio 1, so it didn’t really sink in till afterwards’, with Elliot nodding in confirmation. ‘We did stick around for the whole weekend though, we saw all the main headliners, Lorde, London Grammar who were insane’.

To the future? When asked, the lads focused on an upcoming festival in Japan as the highlight of festival season. ‘The country where we had our second highest album sales, after the UK, was Japan,’ Elliot laughed. ‘I don’t even think I did many interviews with anyone over there!’ ‘As there’s only two major music festivals out in Japan, people tend to come out for them and we’re hoping they come down and like our stuff.’

On top of this, other festival slots across Europe beckon – including Reading and Leeds at the end of August – and then off on a UK headline tour taking in Nottingham’s own Rescue Rooms. ‘Festival season’s good, but it’s always good to get back to being able to playing the whole album to crowds rather than the more streamlined sets we have to do at festivals’.

Whether it’s festivals or headline shows, or future material to come, the band who set fire to their own tour bus (it’s true, Google it) certainly seem to have a bright future. Stay tuned here for a review of their performance which, without wanting to give too much away, definitely reached and surpassed all expectations, and see below the two lads’ selections for what we hope will become a feature of future interviews here at The Mic – the one song in history they wish that they had written!

Catch The Amazons at Rescue Rooms on 6th October 2017

Elliot Briggs – Yesterday by The Beatles/Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones